Due to constantly increasing demands on strength properties of structural components made of steel or a steel alloy in motor vehicle construction, hot forming techniques are being increasingly used in series manufacture, in order to form high and/or very high strength steels. With hot-forming, a blank is initially heated. This is usually carried out in a furnace. The heated blank is then removed from the furnace and laid in a forming tool, in which the blank is hot-formed. With forming with press-hardening, for example, the blank is heated at least to austenitizing temperature. This is then followed by a rapid cooling of the blank, such that the austenitic microstructure of the blank is converted into a martensitic microstructure. Taking as a basis good forming properties, with the presence of an austenitic microstructure, there is accordingly a perceptible rise in strength values during forming, and therefore a deterioration in the forming properties of the blank. From the German published application DE 10 2005 018 974 A1 a device is known with which blank from a furnace can be laid into a tempered forming tool, wherein, during the removal from the furnace and the laying into the forming tool, by means of contact elements the blanks are kept at desired temperature by current flow. The intention is that the blanks are also formed at the temperatures provided for the hot-forming. In addition, from the German published application DE 198 34 510 A1 a fine cutting tool is known, in which a heating plate with heating elements is arranged in the cutting plate and in the guide plate and a temperature sensor is provided for controlling the heating plates. With the known fine cutting tool, hot-work tool steels can be processed both at room temperature as well as at semi-hot temperature.
A problem with the forming tools known from the prior art is that although they allow tempering of the forming tool, it is not possible to achieve precise control of the blank temperature during the forming.